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26 June, 2009

Issue 1 of my new journal SHAPE (Science, Holism, Abstraction, Philosophy, Emergence) is now available for free from E-Journal.org.uk here

The issue includes six articles (all papers from larger series that will be published over future issues) covering a wide variety of subjects including The Debacle of the Large Hadron Collider - why it won't work! Explanation via Chaos - a paper on the bank crash - why politics can't be explained by Chaos theory. A Structure of Diagrams, Are You A Real Marxist, The Gradual Emergence of Life, Before The Big Bang - quite a set for Issue 1 I think you'll agree! The website also features bonus series in the archive - The Nature of Form, The Nature of Reality, Emergence & Reductionism and The Philosophy of Mathematics each featuring a set of two or more papers.All papers are available as PDF downloads so you can print them off easily and read them at your leisure.

We are also looking for submissions by other authors and scientists for the journal. If you are interested in participating or have any comments on any of the topics, leave them here or visit our contact page

Happy reading!

Editorial from Issue 1:

Welcome to the SHAPE Journal.In this double Launch Issue we will begin with six sequences of papers on a wide variety of topics. We unashamedly concentrate on Philosophy as the essential and universal approach to human understanding of the world, but, as you will soon see, reject totally its usual academic and remarkably opaque form. Philosophy is too important to be sidelined into esoteric territory for a privileged intelligentsia. It is essential for everybody, yet never so addressed!

Therefore, all our Strands (categories), though all part of our conception of Philosophy, will range across a very wide spectrum of disciplines that would usually be placed elsewhere. This initial selection will give an idea of what we will be discussing. Perhaps the most important papers, which commence here, are not what you would expect to find in an academic Journal, but the separation into clearly distinct disciplines is without doubt at the very heart of what is wrong with them. They are usually hermetically sealed compartments, which admit of NO all embracing approach. Well, that essential World View standpoint is precisely what we mean this Journal to be all about.

The paper Explanation via Chaos is a thorough-going criticism of a BBC TV programme (High Anxieties) which attempted to explain the World Bank crisis of Autumn 2008 as a result of unavoidable mathematical Chaos, and hence "nobody's fault". The second major article The Debacle of the Large Hadron Collider was, once again, in response to a "popularising" TV programme on this amazing billion dollar venture, and tackles the by now century-long crisis of these physicists locked into the cul de sac of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory. Four other papers cover topics as far apart as Marxism, the techniques of Realisation via Diagrams, what came before the Big Bang and finally the myth of the gradual Emergence of Life on Earth. Quite a set, I think you will agree!

This first double issue will hope to establish our remit, and subsequent issues will continue with already commenced sequences of papers, and also introduce new concerns in each and every new publication. We sincerely invite comments and contributions, but please note that the initiators will not accept everything that is offered. This does not mean we will reject articles which oppose previous contributions to the Journal. Open debate is essential in this vital area. Please join in and make Philosophy the real search for Truth that it was always meant to be! This is the Shape of things to come...

About Me

I am a retired lecturer and full-time writer. As the truth of Science has been my major concern throughout my life, I cannot conceive of teaching it in an uncritical, passive way. It's truth or error is THE question, and its improvement must be my main purpose. Teaching for me is Philosophy, and that means taking a stand on all sorts of issues, not sitting on the fence!